BUREIJ, Palestinian Territories: After Russia invaded Ukraine, Viktoria Saidam knew she needed to find a “safer place” than Kyiv and ultimately chose her husband’s homeland — a Palestinian territory not typically associated with security: Gaza.
Saidam, 21, was born Viktoria Breij in Vinnytsia, a town some 200 km southwest of Ukraine’s capital. While studying pharmacy in Kyiv, she met Ibrahim Saidam, a medical student from Bureij, a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-blockaded Mediterranean enclave home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
Since they married two years ago, Viktoria Saidam had been keen to get to Gaza to meet her in-laws, but the Russian assault launched on Feb. 24 accelerated that long-anticipated family gathering, she said.
“We understood that there was no way to know what tomorrow would bring. The number of dead and dying was rising every day,” said the young woman, sobbing.
Their first move was to pack up, leave Kyiv and head to Vinnytsia. They left the town before a March 7 Russian bombardment on Vinnytsia’s airport killed nine people according Ukraine’s emergency services.
“My husband and I had to look for a safer place than Ukraine,” Saidam said. “We chose his homeland, Gaza.”
The couple fled Ukraine by minibus and then on foot, walking across the Romanian border. They then flew to Cairo and from there headed for the Rafah crossing with southern Gaza.
There are some 2,500 Ukrainians in Gaza, mostly women who have married Palestinians men who studied abroad, like Ibrahim.
The impeccably coiffed 23-year-old husband speaks fluent Ukrainian.
